Lotus

And that makes a central defender worse than useless. Mental that so many managers kept trying to get something from him that wasn't there. He wasn't worse than useless, though. He had far more good games than bad. He couldn't be relied upon to concentrate. Obvious to everyone. I know all fans have a mancrush or some player or other but Bramble ain't worth the love.

I agree. Some big decisions for Pardew for this. Don't envy him actually. He'll be worried about MYM and Anita and i can see why (both are better footballers, clearly), sometimes you need some size. Especially if the opposition have it abnd use it. If we could get our midfield 5 to actually work effectively as a unit then i think we could get something from this. I can imagine Villains will be thinking that a trio of Weimann, Benteke and Agbonlahor will scare the crap out of our defence and i can see why. I sincerely hope that Cisse, Remy and HBA scare the crap out of theirs. We've certainly the talent to do so.

Thing is, as frustrating as Robert could be at times, he actually contributed to a lot of goals. Never underestimate the value of someone who can whip in a quality ball early. CF's always have and always will love that kind of player.

Never ceases to amaze me how Scousers try and distort fairly simple reasoning and rationale to present the whole Carroll affair as a great deal for them.

Coloccini is a better player.

Have enjoyed listening to Gus Poyet's analysis of games. Been very insightful. Seems to really know his stuff and can pinpoint things in an instructive way.

You are right about the loan notes, they were structured. Given that the club lost £32 million in 2007 and was technically insolvent it must be possible that would have consituted a breach of covenant? Incidentally apart from the stadium loan notes the club also had a further chunk of about £25 million (from memory) of debt outstanding in the summer of 2007. I have quoted your paragraph above, as I'm not so sure about it. Clearly Spurs have done something like that over the years but they are an exception rather than a rule. There is a bit of Everton about it. I'm not sure the supporter base would be too receptive to a new ownership regime creating another Everton. Maybe I'm wrong. It is a club that lives within its means but a lot of the fan base criticise the board for lacking ambition (ambition = money). Haing ambition does not equal operating beyond your means. It means having the will and determination to improve and grow. Mix that with some ability and we have the potential to improve and grow in stature both on and off the field. As there is a total lack of will or determination the talent that could help realise it will keep well away. Naturally. The able and the apathetic are not natural bedfellows.

The source of the debt is irrelevant, the fact was we were built on unsustainable credit, we needed an owner with deep pockets, we got one, could have been better oh aye, BUT the resultant carnage had we not got one would dwarf the current situation in terms of criticality IMO. That's not a defence btw, just a statement of the facts as I see them. Then you're not comparing apples with apples so don't bother. You bring up to clubs as comparison when in actuality the situations were very different. I think he was just comparing football clubs who have financial stability issues. Then use examples that are in some way relevant and comparable. Otherwise it highlights nothing tbf.

The source of the debt is irrelevant, the fact was we were built on unsustainable credit, we needed an owner with deep pockets, we got one, could have been better oh aye, BUT the resultant carnage had we not got one would dwarf the current situation in terms of criticality IMO. That's not a defence btw, just a statement of the facts as I see them. Then you're not comparing apples with apples so don't bother. You bring up to clubs as comparison when in actuality the situations were very different.

To me he doesn't appear to restructured the way we're run for us to able to manage without him. Commercial revenue has decreased. There's nothing on the pitch worth a hike in season ticket pricing. Does this make us an attractive option to buy?

Mashley has zero footballing ambition for NUFC. Which is clearly good enough for some. We should be grateful tbh.

Quayside. I haven't said you are defending Ashley's idiocy. Ozzie quoting your posts to defend it though so it was directed at him. Things got out of shape under the Halls. Things are not going well under Ashley. I'd like to revisit a question i raised. I assume most clubs have their debt held by banks/financial insitutions (clearly not Chelsea and Mancity). If our debt was placed similarly to those other clubs. Would we be in good shape financially? Would we be in profit as we are now? Because, if not then the obvious conclusion is that Ashley is not running the club optimally. Or even close to it. All he would have done would be to shield the club from that kind of exposure but not set any means in place whereby it could operate free of him.

The arguement is that our debt is now manageable. What i'd be interested in knowing is what state we'd be in if our debt was still to banks/financial institutions. Has Mashley improved the financial running of the club to the extent that, comparing apples with apples, our balance sheet would we significantly improved. Because, if all he's done is make the debt attributable to himself and therefore reduce the interest payments but has not in anyway improved our means of increasing revenues i'd say his financial management hasn't been as magnificent as prothletised. He's no Daniel Levy

Not quite understanding the glorious point that Ozzie seems to think he's highlighting out of Quayside's analysis that we all seem to be missing. We all know the finances looked unsustainable under the last regime towards the end. WE ALL KNOW THAT. Quayside then goes on to say that our current management structure is worse than embarrassing and that, and this is ENTIRELY factual, we have a worse average league position under Ashley than the Halls.

He's from Newcastle isn't he? Would think family and friends would be leaning on him in a big way to get some info.

I think decorating the insides of Carl Fletcher's missus amongst other rumours while Pard's own wife was sufferring from depression rather tainted him before he even turned up at SJP tbh. Then he lied about not knowing Hughton was for the sack. That sort of thing probs goes on a lot with managers though.

Maybe Anita at some point. We'd at least want our money back and i can't see anyone paying £7m for Anita unless he actuall has a decent season of 30+ starts.

The players we have that are genuinely good enough to tempt bigger clubs are Cabaye and HBA. HBA is inconsistent and has a bit recent history with injuries (still my favourite player) and Cabaye does want out. The next 2 to appear on other clubs wish lists will be Sissoko and MYM. I don't think we've a squad littered with players other teams are desperate to take off of us tbh.

I don't think anyone believes that really, I certainly don't. But I do believe he would want signings in, like any manager. Can I respond to this? You don't think anyone believes what? That Pardew is on our side in the sense he wants those above out the club. This is an amazing post. Like anybody buying Newcastle United is going to keep Alan Pardew in post for a single second. Wow. Have to say Brett, fair play, you're totally entitled to you opinion. I thought before you were a (probably) young optimist. However, that statement is fanboyesque and bizarre. I have no idea how you draw your conclusions but i know you let don't let evidence cloud your wishful thinking. To be fair to Brett, I think I've misread it, thank God. Well that went well for you and Lotus, try again tomorrow lads What did i miss? Pardew wants the people above him out of the club?

I don't think anyone believes that really, I certainly don't. But I do believe he would want signings in, like any manager. Can I respond to this? You don't think anyone believes what? That Pardew is on our side in the sense he wants those above out the club. This is an amazing post. Like anybody buying Newcastle United is going to keep Alan Pardew in post for a single second. Wow. Have to say Brett, fair play, you're totally entitled to you opinion. I thought before you were a (probably) young optimist. However, that statement is fanboyesque and bizarre. I have no idea how you draw your conclusions but i know you let don't let evidence cloud your wishful thinking.

Mashley has serious problems with his judgement. I don't know if he's a bad judge of character or what but his needle is way off north. It's so bad that he can't even judge whether the person he employs has a better or worse faculty of judgement than him. Everyone makes mistakes. It's consecutive mistakes that get you in trouble. He's on a roll with these at the moment.

He doesn't HAVE to do anything. He doesn't have to lend his name to that and he doesn't have to accept it. He can walk at any time or break ranks. We aren't in a good position, we are 2/3 injuries away from being f***ed. Jesus Christ man Walk and just let JFK win? Actaully you are happy for JFK to come in aren't you because things can't get any worse apparently. Our squad can barely get any better according to you, what with being in a better position than most sides out there and all. Find any quote where i've said it can barely get any better? Made it clear i was disappointed with lack of a striker/midfielder. I do think our squad is better than most, i've asked someone to pick one of these other sides squads that is better than ours, obvs bar top 6. We aren't in major trouble like people make out. We've had a good start to the season and our players are starting to come together and get fit. We have Ashley as owner, he's a c***, we've just got to deal with it and move on to get results on the pitch even though he hasn't made it any easier for us but we still have the talent available to get results. I'll be interested to see how we fare against Everton, they splurged big money on McCarthy and brought in Lukaku on loan. McCarthy was supposedly one of our targets and we were after a striker like Lukaku. Remy was a good signing but will that be enough going up against teams that have signed players in 3's and 4's? Yep Everton have seemingly done well, if someone was to say they would take their sqaud, it's not something i would argue with, very fair point. That's still only 7 teams out of 20 which i would say puts us still in a good position if you're better than the rest even though you've spent f*** all. It's just a massively missed opportunity to push on that little bit more and move away from the chasing pack, unfortunately the pack have closed on us as they brought in little bits of quality here and there but we are still ahead imo. Are we ahead of them based on results and performances or by the ratings FM gives the players? I just need to know the yardstick otherwise it's hard to form my replies in the correct context. So, is this judged on real life going back 45-50 games or something less tangible more along the lines of what you wished were true?

where do you play ben arfa ? surely he's better pushed further up but not as a tsriker ? In the Cazorla/Walcott role coming from the right because arsenal have that lack of mobility in the middle (which we have when tiote plays). There's many problems with Tiote. A lack of mobility is not one of them. it's not ? he's mobile when they have, he's statuesque when we have it. it also drags cabaye further back to get the ball off the defenders as the oppo want us to give it tiote. Nah not really. He's meant to be a DM, where do you want him to run? He often makes the most passes for us when he plays and he always shows for the ball. His issue is not moving the ball quickly enough. Pressuring Tiote into mistakes like Stottie said - is very effective for opponent. There's nothing wrong with having 2 CM's sitting pretty deep. The problem is that we don't have another midfielder or forward that wants to come deep and get the ball to link it up. When you have 2 strikers that want to run away from the ball theres nothing wrong with it, esxpet the playing staff we have don't really lend themselves to it as much as a mobile 4-3-3. Who else plays a genuine 4-3-3? With 3 strikers? We wouldn't be playing with 3 strikers.... Hatem isn't a striker. Besides Liverpool do. Help me here, i saw Sturridge up top for Liverpool on MOTD2 but no other strikers? So, our imaginary 4-3-3 has got 2 strikers and 4 midfielders. 2 players who'll get in the box. HBA running from deep. We haven't got the players for it. We would need better midfielders. It's not the running around that wears out Anita and Cabaye. It's the constant shoulder to shoulder action with bigger, stronger blokes that sap them. Tiote can do it but he's not so good at football. That leaves Sissoko, he can do it. We're too powder puff in midfield to just leave 3 in there. We also don't have the tactical discipline to do it. Would constantly need HBA and Remy to spend too much time around the half way line to be effective as a quick attacking unit. I loved the last 20 minutes against Fulham but Fulham were utterly, utterly woeful and disinterested. Won't get anywhere near that kind of space against Villa. No where near it. So it will be quick balls forward to avoid the midfield getting caught in possession.

You and i don't have to anything to get results on the pitch. That's meant to be there job but it's something they're interested in. Clearly, even for you i would think.